The Invincible Czars are best known as the masters of silent horror film accompaniment from our years of touring the US and Canada with our original, tastefully modern scores… but that’s not how we got started!
We developed our own brand of weird, cinematic, instrumental music mixing an unconventional blend of orchestral and rock instruments in the clubs of Austin, TX starting around 2003. We opened for bands like Secret Chiefs 3, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Melt Banana, etc. but our eclectic instrumentation and broad scope quickly led us to crossovers into the fine arts realm (starting with our Austin-tacious version of The Nutcracker Suite) and we eventually stopped performing in clubs altogether.
In 2007, we started accompanying silent films with our own tastefully modern, original live soundtracks at the first Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Austin. We kept adding films and traveling farther and farther. In 2016, our soundtrack for Nosferatu struck a chord with horror and classic cinema fans nationwide and we’ve been focused primarily on silent horror film soundtracks ever since. These shows are a lot of fun – we encourage audience participation and write music that helps contemporary audiences engage with these 100 year-old movies.
Now, we operate like combination rock band and chamber ensemble mixing strings, woodwinds and other orchestral instruments with drums, bass and guitar. We still know how to rock but our shows are less raucous and we keep our shirts on… usually.
In 2023, we celebrated our 20th anniversary!
Do you like Primus, Frank Zappa, Devo, Danny Elfman, Mr. Bungle, Goblin, Tchaikovsky, Monty Python and Louis Armstrong? If so, you might like what we’re doing!
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Dr. Caligari Kickstarter!
Our Dr. Caligari DVD Kickstarter campaign is launching later this spring. Click here to pre-save the campaign we'll alert you when it launches!
Return of the Pink Elephants video
We're really excited about this new video for "Return of the Pink Elephants." We used this music throughout our silent film soundtrack for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. As we shot the video, violinist Phil Davidson asked me, "How did you even come up with this...
2023!
We've been taking some time off after that massive Nosferatu Centennial Tour to make 2023 plans: another US / Canada silent movie tour with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for fall 2023 and ----------- our 20th Anniversary show in Austin! It'll be our first rock club...
